Corus R13: Anand and Topalov win Wijk

1/30/2006 – A fine victory by Vishy Anand over Boris Gelfand in the last round left the Indian chess star sharing first with Veselin Topalov, who drew his game against Peter Leko. Anand, like Topalov, has now crossed the 2800 mark. In Group B Motylev and Carlsen shared first. Both have been invited to play in next year's A Group. Big report.

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The Corus Chess Tournament 2006 is being held from 13-29 January 2006 in Wijk
aan Zee, Holland. The venue is the De Moriaan Community Centre (Dorpsduinen
4, 1949 EG Wijk aan Zee) and the nearby bar de Zon. Commentary is available
in the Corus Chess Pavilion, on the Village Green in Wijk aan Zee.

Final standings

Round Thirteen Report

We apologize for the delay in getting you this report. It was caused by
the turbulences of the final day, when the last rounds needed to be played,
all equipment packed, the closing ceremony staged, the final gala dinner for
players and guests, the final breakfast, checking out of the hotel, driving
people to the airport, transferring from Wijk aan Zee back to Hamburg, sleeping
for more than six hours for the first time in two weeks. Ah, but what are we
complaining. Some players, like the one called Vassily Ivanchuk, had to leave
at 4 a.m. to catch a flight – after doing most of the above and having
played a grueling 13 rounds in this super-tough tournament.

The final round saw a fighting and fitting finish to the 2006 Corus tournaments.
In the A Group, Vishy Anand beat Boris Gelfand in an impressive game to draw
even with Veselin Topalov on 9/13 (+5). Anand even took the trophy on tiebreaks.
This was the first shared first in Wijk aan Zee since 1998, when Kramnik and
Anand finished on top.

Veselin Topalov before his final round game in Wijk aan Zee

Everyone expected a battle between the world's top-rated active players. Ivanchuk
was the early leader with two wins to start, but he was brought down by Anand
in round three and it was all Topalov and Anand after that. Anand caught Topalov
by beating Gelfand in a game that had it all. Sharp preparation, witty tactics,
and a methodical technical grind.

Gelfand's beloved Najdorf taks a heavy blow when he opens things up for tactics
instead of castling. 15...Rb8 instead of 15...0-0 is met with 16.Bc5!
Qc7 17.Rxd6 Qxa5 18.Rxe6 (the only move) 18...fxe6 19.Bxe7
and the bishop is immune to capture because 19...Kxe7 20.Qa7+ wins. White had
a pawn for the exchange, but more importantly the black king is open and his
pawns are vulnerable. Even the greediest computer program realizes that White
is in the driver's seat. Gelfand seemed a little desperate to get the queens
off and reach an endgame. It seems he overestimated his defensive possibilities,
but that is exactly what a masterful technical player like Gelfand has to do
sometimes, and he usually makes it work.

52...Nc5. Anand has been relentless and exploited every advantage
and weakness. Gelfand has declined to play purely defensively and it's unlikely
he would have held the draw had he done so. 52...Nd2 was perhaps the last interesting
alternative, although the best Black can do is come out with a pawn-down rook
endgame that White should win. 53.Rf2 Nxf3 (53...Rxf3? leads to a winning pawn
endgame for White.) 54.Nf6+ Rxf6 55.Bxf6 Rxf6 56.Rxf3.

Leko started out poorly against Topalov and had to scramble to save the draw.
Kasparov summed it up with, "Leko was terrible when he wanted to do something,
but when he had to save the draw he played almost perfectly!"

Leko vs Topalov, a decider in round 13

Ivanchuk won his first game in over a week to bookend a strong event for him.
He beat his countryman (countryboy?) Karjakin in a powerful demonstration of
play with the bishop pair. If you are ever looking for a master class in this
material balance, just trot out this one. It brought Ivanchuk up to equal 3-4
with Adams, who also had a steady event. Kasparov made the argument that with
only a little luck Ivanchuk could have scored +4 in this event. Karjakin's
final +1 is still impressive. The 16-year-old outperformed his rating to a
greater degree than anyone else in the field.

Oh the intensity: the inner-Ukrainian battle between Ivanchuk and Karjakin

Dispite the last-round loss Sergey picked up the prize for best junior performance

Aronian reached an even score with some impressive preparation against poor
Sokolov's Slav. He and his team had prepared the exchange sacrifice on move
twenty and indeed had prepared the entire game!

The final fireworks are great fun to watch. First came the queen sacrifice:
29.Qxb8 Rxb8 30.Rc8+ Qd8 31.Nxa7 Be8 32.Rxd8 Rxd8 and now
White picked the prettiest of the many wins with 33.Bd5+ Bf7 34.Ne7+
Kf8 35.Nec6 1-0.

That guaranteed the deeply despondent Sokolov the cellar alone, despite Kamsky's
loss to Tiviakov's first win. Tiviakov was a model of conservative play throughout
the tournament and was rewarded with an even score. For Kamsky it finished
off a roller-coaster event that was more plunges than climbs. He lost eight
games, many of them terrible and/or straight of out the opening. His four wins,
particularly those over in-form Anand and Gelfand, show there is no limit to
the potential of his comeback. Now of only he can find time to work on the
openings!

The old guard clearly outperformed the new kids on the block. The top four
finishers were battling it out in supertournaments back when Aronian, Bacrot,
and Mamedyarov were playing in the U10 sections. It was another disappointing
result for Leko, who, lest we forget, won clear first here last year and beat
Anand.

Anand and Topalov in the press conference after the final game

The shade of Garry Kasparov still tops the official rating list for a few
more months (Kasparov himself is critical of this situation in his latest New
In Chess column). Now Anand will at last tip over the 2800 mark, most
likely with 2803 in the April list. Topalov will be quite close to catching
Kasparov's frozen rating of 2812, though still distant from Kasparov's 1999
peak of 2851.

Making a point: Topalov, Anand and Leko in discussion

Ahh, I see what you mean, Peter...

Group B

There was also an exciting finish in the B Group. The last three days saw
three different leaders. In the final round, Almasi lost to Cheparinov.

The Russian and the Norwegian ended on top with 9/13. Here the tiebreaks normally
matter, because the winner of the B Group goes up to the A Group in 2007. Motylev
had the better tiebreaks to take the title, but the organizers were quick to
announce that Carlsen will also be invited to the A Group next year. Few doubt
he will be ready for the challenge, if he isn't already.

Young talents Katya Lahno and Alex Motylev

Group C

Rating favorite Suat Atalik of Turkey duly dominated the C Group. He outrated
the field by a large margin and scored eight wins without a loss. With the
juniors being so strong and playing in the B and even the A groups, the usually
youthful C Group looked like a retirement community in comparison to recent
years.

Another fabulous event, a fighting event full of great games and great novelties.
Next on the "super" calendar is Linares, which this year starts in
Morelia, Mexico. The players are Topalov, Leko, Svidler, Ivanchuk, Bacrot,
Aronian, Vallejo Pons, beginning on February 18. But you won't want
to overlook another Mexican event, a top junior-ish event in Cuernavaca Feb.
1-11. It hosts Ponomariov, Vallejo Pons, Karjakin, Nakamura, Volokitin,
Cheparinov, Bruzon, Dominguez, Felgaer, and Mexico's Manuel Leon Hoyos. That's
quite a rough month for Vallejo Pons. And Nakamura will be defending
his US Championship title 10 days after it concludes.

Yet more news out of Mexico isn't so good. The giant swiss international open
that was to run alongside Linares and was drawing players from around the world
has just been cancelled. Quite a few players already had tickets and arrangements
so this is quite a blow to the future of Mexican chess organization at this
level. Que disastre.

Live video commentary from Wijk aan Zee by GM Yasser Seirawan

Watching the games from New York: Mig Greengard, here with Garry Kasparov

When and how to
watch

The games of the Corus
Chess Tournament start at 13:30h Central European Time, which is GMT +
1h, or 7:30 a.m. New York and 15:30 Moscow (you can check for other locations
here).

There is live coverage
on the official web site (links at the bottom of the page) and on Playchess.com,
where audio and video commentary will be provided by GM Yasser
Seirawan, live from Wijk aan Zee. Don't miss it!

Here is where you can find and replay the video commentary from the Playchess
archives. Click on "English" and then select the report in the Games window.
Replaying archive files costs you a Ducat
or two.

See also

3/27/2018 – Sergey Karjkin didn't succeed in posing serious problems for Ding Liren and after, what he called, a "terrible blunder", he had to scramble to save a draw. That left Caruana in great shape to win the tournament. Mamedyarov struggled to find winning chances with black against Kramnik, but in the end that game ended drawn as well. Caruana, needing only a draw, was in command against Grischuk and even won the game to finish in clear first by a full point! | Photo and drawings by World Chess

See also

1/28/2018 – Magnus Carlsen won the 80th Tata Steel Masters which was decided in a blitz tiebreak over Dutch number one Anish Giri. The players contested two blitz games with 5 minutes plus 3 seconds per move, with no sudden death Armageddon game needed. Vidit played solidly to earn a draw that was enough to win the Challengers, as Korobov could not manage to pull off a win with black on-demand. | Photo: Alina l'Ami TataSteelChess.com

Video

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